Two coats of epoxy primer wrap Tranquility’s deck as I walk the dock in the cold morning, the first sunbeams reflects on the pure white forming little drops of dew on the surface. The hard work is slowing paying off and the grey tormented deck is already a memory. One more coat will hide any further mark of underlayer with an immaculate cloak, then the sexy two-part polyhurethane paint will have the perfect stage to play its glossy role.
Painting and sanding punctuate our days. The weather rules our schedule, as we are doing everything in open air, vulnerable to atmospheric change. We look for dry days, the warmer the better, but this time of the year in Coastal Georgia warm means humid and we have to adapt to good enough conditions. It’s always a little too windy or too humid or too cold. We don’t have the luxury to wait for the perfect day and we do the best with what we get. Other events, from family visits to work obligations, decide when we are able to continue working. We keep pushing but we can’t always walk at the pace we would like and our March deadline is getting closer every day.
As we work to change our mindset and we go through our belongings I am feeling a profound appreciation for the place we have been living for the last two years. The itch of going back to the ocean has often disturbed my ability to see all the gifts the Golden Isles provided us with, from wonderful friends to work opportunities, all surrounded by beautiful wilderness and by the warmth of a great sailing community. We and Tranquility went through a lot during this time, more than we could have possibly hoped for when we first launch from New Bedford, MA.
My parents recently visited us from Italy. It was their first trip to the US and we showed them around and took them to our favorite spots in this part of Georgia. We weren’t able to see them all, as they are too many. Through their amused eyes I could see once again how wonderful this coast is from many different points of view. There will a be time for goodbye and as we approach it the feelings of gratitude and nostalgia begin to pay us a visit. But it’s not time yet, we are still here and we have to keep the paint flow.
During the last month of boat works I focused on preparing the deck for painting, a job that shouldn’t require a month of full time work. In reality, this task is much more than sand the old paint off and clean the surface.
The job can be summarized by this sequence:
sanding
fiberglass jobs where needed
more sanding
more fiberglass repairs
fairing
more sanding
more fairing
Do, repeat and loop the sequence to one’s own standard of “ready to go”.
A “detail oriented personality” could go ahead in an obsessive and repetitive challenge until the fingertips will be scratched to the bone before considering the deck ready for painting. Luckily I am not that kind of person. On the other hand I am a victim of creative ideas randomly rising during the progression of the project. This modifications sometimes put a heavy hand in the plan, disrupting it totally.
Deck modifications
Before a thorough deck preparation could start I had to complete few design ideas that would help solve some issues we experienced with the original deck layout.
Columbia 29s were built with an interesting deck to hull joint that rises few inches above the deck to form bulwarks from aft to end. This was also the designer’s signature to give a very nice sheer line to the deck. We love the bulwark on Tranquility, they help keeping your feet on deck when the boat heels as well as providing a barrier for objects that wants to fall overboard.
The drawback is that mooring lines and other overhanging hardware have to climb this protective wall incurring in the risk of chafing or making their installation difficult. This is particularly true on the bow, where the anchor roller and other deck hardware had to rest on a precarious base made of untreated construction grade lumber that obviously had rotted away and became a condo for photophobic insects by the time we owned the boat. Shame on whoever cobbled up that ridicolous solution!
The problem had to be addressed with some creativity and a lot of courage. When it was clear that Tranquility required a “nose job” I went through the anxieties and insecurities common to pre and post plastic surgery. With a heavy hand and a heavy heart I pressed on the angle grinder cutting away inches of fiberglass, trying to draw a symmetric line. I then composed a base layer using several odd shaped teak hardwood pieces, put together with thickened epoxy and fiberglass.
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Olin Stephens may be turning in his grave for the new line of his design but the occasional Yacht Club guests walking by were actually pleased with Tranquility’s new look. Our friend Brian even ventured in calling the new look “race boat like”.
Similarly I did a little modification on the transom corners to create a better surface for hardware and mooring lines.
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Stanchion bases
Raised stanchion bases were another upgrade we thought would improve Tranquility’s deck. A thicker and wider base would help preventing stress cracking from wobbling stanchions and keep their base raised from water puddles.
After laminating few layers of biaxial fiberglass tape I cut the stanchion base a little wider and then glassed it permanently to the deck.
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New toe rail
The original toe rail was made of three pieces of teak forming an overturned U on top of the bulwark and it was fastened with bronze screws. Age and damages had reduced the coverage and efficacy of the teak toe rail. A recent experience during a delivery raised curiosity towards the hull to deck joint on our boat and so I had to get the wood off and expose the joint. The removal job was one way and I knew that after that I needed to give Tranquility brand new toe rail. I fancied a project featuring fancy solid teak bar bent in shape over the bulwark but after realizing that I purchased a not so great stock of teak hardwood from E-bay I had to reconsider the idea. You get what you pay for they say, so I opted for using that wood to create permanent epoxy and fiberglass toe rail that will be painted with the deck.
The project include around 100 stainless steel #8 sheet metal screws (one every 8 inches) to join the inboard and outboard teak strips as well as a huge amount of epoxy and colloidal silica and fairing compound as additives. A 6 inches fiberglass cloth was wrapped around the edge and the overhanging extremity sanded off after the resin cured.
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Sanding
Every project had its own portion of sanding so soon Tranquility’s deck became a patchwork. But for our particular paintjob we had to remove any trace of the one part enamel paint we used in our first refit in New Bedford MA. After giving one part paint a try we decided to go with two part that is supposedly harder and more resistant to UV action and wear. To do so we have to remove any trace of one part paint first, as it would not stand the aggressive solvent of two part epoxy primer and polyurethane topcoat and flake off ruining the paintjob.
That required a lot of scraping that we diligently executed using wood chisels. With Kate’s help we went around and scrape it all off, revealing a calico pattern formed by several layers of paint, from the original gelcoat to more recent epoxy primers.
The multicolor deck during sanding operations
While operating the chisel closely to the deck I also exhumed several fiberglass delaminations deeply buried under fairing compound and primer. A delamination happen when two layers of fiberglass start to peel apart from each other leaving a “soft spot”. Everytime the first reaction was to turn my head away and say we would live with it. But I always succumbed to the temptation of fixing them and make the deck stronger. After all how bad could it be another fiberglass job?
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Going through al these pictures I see what I spent the last month doing, and I feel a little less bad about my progress. The deck is not painted yet though and right now we are dealing with our own level of perfectionism and waiting for good weather. Meanwhile: do, repeat and loop.
